


he laughs briefly and in a second has never laughed in his life

by kirbyfanclub



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Angst, Coping, Depression, Eddie Kaspbrak Dies, Established Relationship, Eventual Happy Ending, Existential Angst, F/M, Gay Richie Tozier, Hurt/Comfort, IT 2010 Script, Implied/Referenced Drug Addiction, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Loser Club Sleeping In A Big Pile, M/M, Not coping, Post-Chapter 2, Stanley Uris Dies, Therapy (eventually), its gonna get sad. but stick with me he's going to get better, this is a fic about richie learning to move on after eddie's death
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-03
Updated: 2020-06-25
Packaged: 2021-02-28 23:47:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,753
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23455777
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kirbyfanclub/pseuds/kirbyfanclub
Summary: After the final battle with Pennywise, Richie Tozier does not know what to do, or where to go. The death of Eddie Kaspbrak left him a shell of a man.When his manager and... partner of 3 years, Steve Covall, comes back to Derry, Richie doesn't know how to manage his feelings for his deceased childhood love, keeping the horrible truths of the world secret from Steve, or the sheer concept of normalcy.A Post-Chapter 2 fic with a focus on the relationship between Richie and his manager Steve, as it is explored in the IT 2010 script. A mix of movie, book, and 2010 script canon.
Relationships: Ben Hanscom/Beverly Marsh, Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier, Steve Covall/Richie Tozier
Comments: 3
Kudos: 21





	1. Chapter 1: Richie Tozier Has a Bad Day, or Two, or Three

**Author's Note:**

> title is from "rosencrantz & guildenstern are dead" by tom stoppard. i read it for school and reached that line and was like... haha... richie moment.
> 
> TW for this chapter:  
> canonical character death (eddie, stan, bowers), references to sex, depression, morbid humor, discussion of suicide and suicidal thoughts, internalized homophobia, racism, implied drug addiction, discussion of cheating.

Richie Tozier is used to being guided from place to place by people who know better than him where he should be. If his mom says he needs to quietly go with her at the supermarket, if Bill tells him it’s time to kick the shit in the Barrens, or if some big shot producer thinks his Voices are worth big money and show time, he is more than willing to give them that. 

If he were to be so bold, Richie would even say that he enjoys being guided. He gets to put all his energy into making the people in the room laugh, or gawk, or make him eat or not eat shit. Chances are, usually, the places he ends up will be just to his liking. Any stage in America is a stage where he can tell jokes and make a pretty penny, any place in Derry feels just as unsafe and haunted as the last, so really, it’s all the same. 

It feels weird to have nothing to say, once it’s all over and It is dead. The Losers swim until they are clean, taking a walk down memory lane, and pull him out of the quarry when they realize they can’t make him do much more. It’s a quiet walk back to the townhouse, only pausing when they see their reflections in the storefront. It feels so wrong, to be standing there with two gaping rifts in their family. Someone says something about their scars healing, and how nothing lasts forever, and Richie thinks about the bridge. He doesn’t say anything. He can deal with it when he doesn’t feel so dead.

When they get back, they all wordlessly drift to Bev’s room, and collapse in a pile on the bed. Richie would have preferred going to his own room and screaming into his pillows, but Bev holds his hand when they reach the stairs. It’s always Bev, drawing them in and holding them together when it all seems too much. Not just Richie, all of them.

It is too much, but it’s better to feel dead surrounded by the people you love, than alone, Richie supposes. It’s not sexual, the nap pile,  _ obviously _ . The last thing on Richie’s mind right now is having sex with women, blessed be Bev and her beauty. 

The lady of the hour is wrapped around Ben. She’s small enough to just lay on top of him and his massive muscles. Bill is unceremoniously splayed across Richie’s legs and Mike’s chest, who is barely even on the bed. All of them fall asleep easy, but Richie. He lays on his back next to Ben and under Bill and stares blankly at the water-damaged ceiling.

He’s taking up more space than he should with his broad shoulders and thick legs, but none of them said a word when Ben pulled him down and Bev pulled the pillow under his head. They adjusted themself around him, as they had at the quarry. He should be comforted, but he feels crowded and trapped under their freedom.

He thinks about Bev and Ben under the water. The irony of them finally consummating their beautiful, true love while holding his bloodied glasses doesn’t escape him, but he knows they weren’t thinking about that. It’s not a grudge. Richie isn’t mad. Richie isn’t  _ anything _ right now. They’re lucky to have each other. He’s happy for them. That doesn’t mean he doesn’t start to cry, silent and heavy, next to them.

When they wake up later that night, Richie still has not slept.

At Bev’s gentle insistence, Richie crawls out of the freezing bed and drags his body to the bathroom around 3 P.M. He draws a bath, and when he settles into the water, he breaks a little more. He lies there, head against the porcelain rim, and thinks about Stan. Is this how Stan felt before he did it? After? Empty and stuck? Stan had a good life, Richie thinks. He didn’t know that for sure, but he could feel it.  _ Best friend instincts _ , he reasoned, generously. A loving wife, a successful grown-up career in a field he enjoyed. Bev said he had been doing a puzzle. Of fucking course he liked puzzles. And then he cut his wise and happy arms in crosses and laid himself to rest. 

He wondered if that’s why Stan was always so morose as a kid. He carried some poetic, dramatic weight on his shoulders for them all.  _ Jesus really was Jewish the whole time _ , Richie thought. _ His name was Stanley Urine, and he died for the Loser’s sins to be cleansed _ . Richie felt more than able to die for his sins on his own, thank you very much, Staniel. 

Richie’s mind drifts dangerously to the razor he’d packed when he carelessly swept his few cosmetic belongings into a go-bag. He almost makes a move to get out of the tub and grab it, (interior left pocket, right next to his toothpaste), but he hears Bev laughing downstairs. Then, he hears Ben, Mike, Bill. He wonders how they would react to finding him up here, pruning like a raisin and sliced like a Christmas ham. 

He couldn’t make them mourn another Loser this week. Not… not this week.

Betraying his better judgment, Richie went to Eddie’s room once he’d dried himself off. It wasn’t a crime scene yet, but it would be by tonight, just like how tonight Richie will be either in police custody or, at best, banned from leaving the state of Maine until some dipshit jury decides if he was right or wrong in thunking an ax into Bower’s crazy skull. 

Richie’s entire management would be getting notice of it, either way. Steve would flip shit, probably smack his stupid face across the damn stage, if he ever stepped foot on another.

Right now, it was just a room, and Richie was a free man. The room was so, so empty. There was a giant bloodstain in the bathroom. Richie felt his stomach lurch at the sight, so he closes the door. Eddie’s suitcases lay open on the ground, socks on top, rolled in that military-style roll Richie’s scoffed at on his Instagram Explore page. He gives a wet laugh at the thought of Eddie following life-hacks. He would, wouldn’t he?

Richie tenderly shifts the socks to the side, revealing a sweatshirt that smelled strongly of Febreeze. His brain told him this wouldn’t be helpful, but Richie grazes his hand across its soft surface and lets himself imagine a warm body beneath it. His heartstrings tug, and he carefully removes the sweater from its place. He shrugs it on, miraculously, and looks to the mirror. It’s tight on his broad shoulders but it fits, and he figures it must have been big on Eddie. It’s a warm thought.

He wonders how Eddie would have looked with Richie’s leather jacket actually on, not just hiding his gouged stomach. Richie feels sick again, and he leaves the room.

He hears the other Losers talking at the bar, and goes back to bed.

An hour later, Richie is woken up by Mike and led to the police station. The cop at the front desk sees Mike and squares his shoulders, and Richie wants to sock him. Mike explains that the body of Henry Bowers is in the Derry library and that he was killed in self-defense. They’re brought back for questioning as a different cop leaves to investigate the library, and then they’re explaining over and over how Bowers jumped Mike, and how he had stabbed someone else today. They explain how Richie saw Mike, Bowers, and the knife, and grabbed the first thing he could, and hit Bowers over the head. That item happened to be an ax. The cop eyes him carefully, and Richie cocoons himself in Eddie’s jacket. If Mike recognizes it, he doesn’t say anything.

Richie knows that he needs to take authority here, or else Mike is going to get the full punch of the law when he doesn’t deserve to. He doesn’t even really mind, after everything that’s happened. Richie’ll go to jail for Mike, he’ll rot in a cell without a single complaint if it means a better man with more right to a happy life in his little finger than Richie has in his whole body can fuck around in Florida. Richie tells the clownless truth, and when the police gaze harder at Mike, Richie mimics his fatal swing and mentions how it was long overdue. In another context, Richie really thinks that joke would have gotten a lot of laughs.

The cops tell Richie that he can’t leave Maine until the trial is over, that he has the right to a lawyer, yadda yadda blah blah. Richie barely hears it, but he trusts Mike to.

On their drive back, he asks Mike if he can stand a detour. Always patient and kind, Mike obliges, and Richie navigates them to the Kissing Bridge. His hands shake as he parks, and he fumbles with the cheap pocket knife on the keychain. He leaves the car, and Mike stays, God bless him.

Looking down on the faded marking, Richie feels a swell of pride. It was so stupidly thoughtful of an act. He remembers it being the day after Pennywise appeared to him as Paul Bunyon, the day after he purged the thought of Connor Bowers from his head. Connor was the probably worst possible choice for a middle school crush, but hey, hindsight is 20-20. 

Mike raises an eyebrow as Richie settles back down, and jokingly asks: “For Sonia?” Richie lets out a mirthless grunt as an answer and turns the ignition.

They go back to the townhouse, and Richie downs a shot or three of vodka before heading back to his room. He doesn’t want to not-sleep in Bev’s bed, being sandwiched and babied. 

An hour or so after his back hits the mattress, he hears his door creak open, followed by the lovely sounds of Bev and Ben debating whether or not he’d be okay on his own. Richie recalled childhood, staying up late reading an Amazing Spider-Man issue in bed ( _ cue masturbation joke _ ), and having to feign sleep when his mother stopped by to check on him. Richie misses when the worst thing he could imagine was being caught reading late. He held his breath until they left, returning to their love nest no doubt, and let his bloodshot eyes reopen.

He tries to remember how he slept in Los Angeles. That life felt like a million years ago, and it was horrifying. He had nightmares, a lot, in Los Angeles, and before. 

His apartment was decently high-class (he was, regretfully, successful), but it was a fucking pigsty because no matter how many bucks it was worth, it was still Richie’s. 

The first time Steve had stepped foot in it, he looked like he’d shit himself. It made Richie laugh so hard he keeled over.  _ How the fuck am I supposed to fix your shitty comedy when THIS is your life?  _ he’d yelled, and Richie immediately knew he’d found a keeper. Most managers let Richie off too easily with his dysfunction. Steve couldn’t fix it, but he didn’t let Richie forget it, and that was nice. He remembers that day fondly, the moments before they had to talk business and heterosexual douchebaggery.

Richie slept in his messy ass, manager-disapproved apartment, and he had nightmares. Never about anything tangible, and he never remembered them when he woke up. He was on sleep medication for a bit– Ambien was okay, Melatonin didn’t do shit, Xanax was too addictive for his idealized sobriety’s taste, essential oils are for crackhead vegans, so he didn’t even try those – but they never did much.

Most relief Richie recalls getting was being in bed with someone else, but that didn’t happen too often. When Steve stayed the night, Richie felt okay, once they’d gotten solid. It was nice to fall asleep in the arms of someone else, especially when that someone actually knew you, but not in the way where they knew too much. Just enough to know Richie had an unsuccessfully medicated anxiety disorder, and he was gay but no one could know,  _ and _ that he’s an absolute attention whore who didn’t deserve one lick of the limelight. The trifecta of things to actually know to understand Richie Tozier.

Steve knew that stuff, and he didn’t try to change it. He steered Richie around his worst qualities, told him to get his ass together when he needed a push, and spooned him until he didn’t dream. That was nice. Too nice, and the cold seeps back in when he wonders how fucked up it was of him to be sleeping in Eddie’s sweatshirt, wishing to be with his  _ actual _ romantic partner.  _ Does that count as cheating? Emotionally cheating? Shit.  _ He tries to ignore the thought. __

He just misses him.

Both of them.

_ Steve liked that jacket. _

Reminiscing life in L.A. doesn’t do much to solve Richie’s problems in Derry, but it eases his mind to remember that he could be semi-happy if he tries. Or he could have been, before all this. Richie doubts he’ll ever have a dreamless night again. He turns in bed, and thinks about the Deadlights. He didn’t see everyone’s deaths like Bev did. He just saw Eddie, as he always had, and even that he couldn’t do shit about before it happened. 

Was that it, then? Was that his one dip into nightmare land? He supposed, since It was dead, it wouldn’t make much sense for the Deadlights to still impact him, or Bev. Part of him hoped that every time he slept, if he ever did sleep again, he saw the Deadlights. Eddie’s death would forever be plastered on his eyelids and his eardrums anyway, might as well let his sweet face, still mostly untarnished, coax him to sleep as well.

When he falls asleep, he sees it all and wishes he hadn’t.


	2. Steve Covall Goes To Derry

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> well. been a minute. motivation for writing has been... LOW. lately. for a lot of reasons. but i still feel committed to this idea. with summer now officially upon me, hopefully i'll be able to write more! not gonna make any promises though... for now. here's chapter 2.
> 
> also – as a lesbian. i don't know what makes bill hader attractive. i really dont.
> 
> TW for this chapter: brief emetophobia, mention of drugs/alcohol, drug abuse, non-explicit discussions of sex, homophobia, henry-murder-talk

Steve Covall is a busy, busy man, and he does not have time to chase down Richie Tozier, as much as he wants to. He could steer Richie to the stage, and to the designated puke-stained toilet, to the bed on a good night, and to wherever it was that Richie needed to be at a given moment. 

(If he wasn’t good at pushing someone to where they need to be, why the fuck would he have chosen this career?)

He was good at steering, but Steve had no clue what to do when Richie himself took the wheel. 

In the frantic last moments he saw him, Steve asked Richie to promise to keep him posted, and Richie agreed, packing his bags with unnerving levels of sobriety, murmuring about friendships of his youth and promises, leaving his loft apartment even more of a disaster than it usually was. 

Steve didn’t dare kiss him, not when he was this panicked already. Plus, he smelled disgusting, and he was sweating buckets. In place of a kiss, he placed his hand on Richie’s forearm, ratty gym bag in his iron-hold grip, and squeezed, hoping somehow  _ physical  _ pressure would ease the straining of Richie’s shaking frame and white knuckles. 

“Promise me, Rich. I don’t want any surprises Monday.”

Richie promised, and then he stumbled out the door and into a cab straight to LAX. Steve watched him exit before sighing and gently toeing some clothes that didn’t make it in the final cut back into the closet. That was a week ago.

Steve paced through his office, ringing Richie’s personal phone for what must have been an upward of too-many times. Personal calls scared Richie, sometimes, when Steve made them during work hours. He was past following their professional rules, now. This wasn’t about Richie showing up late for work. This was about Richie going awol for a whole week, a whole fucking week, without a single text, a single call, a single word of good tidings, not even a shitty one-liner or dick pic. 

It was a while before they ended up here, where Steve started to really care about Richie. When they’d first started working together, Steve was just plain mean, and Richie was some womanizing asshole prick with a couple of real gems hidden in the back of his notebooks. (He’d been using ghostwriters for a while already, but he’d kept bits and pieces from his open-mic college days.) Steve would shout and rant, and get Richie’s orders in line without a thought to the man himself.

He supposes the relationship softened when he started to become privy to the anxiety and disorder that Richie hefted around, but Steve wasn’t a therapist. He was a manager. He managed, and the comedy scene is cutthroat, especially for someone whose uniqueness is lost beneath another man’s writing. If Richie needed a hug, a glass of water, sure, Steve would give him one, or two, or three if Richie’s hands shook so bad he dropped the first two and couldn't hold on. But they weren’t close.

It must have been around when they’d started sleeping together that they really started to get along, because now, Steve saw it all; Richie was a lonely man with a genuine sense of humor who was too insecure to let the world embrace him. A kind man with a big mouth and a tendency to cross the wrong lines for the sake of making some laughter. 

Richie was really nervous, that first night. They’d been drinking in Richie’s hotel room, celebrating a show especially well-received, and Richie had kissed him, gently and tasting like beer. Steve had thought, _ shit, this is so unprofessional _ , and then,  _ damn, this is so good _ . He hasn’t thought about Richie like this before, maybe because the man he pretended to be was so repulsively skeevy. And heterosexual, of course. The Richie who kissed him that night was tender and sweet, and certainly not straight. 

When Steve asked about it in the morning, Richie’s eyes darted back and forth, almost as if he was expecting a monster to jump out if he answered. It was odd, Steve thought, for a long-term California resident like Richie to be so skittish about liking men. Family, perhaps. Peers. Something bad, if it lasted this intensely into his late 30’s. 

They were minute changes, how Steve went from a dictator to a guiding hand. Both strategies were effective in managing, he’d found. It wasn’t the sex that changed it, really. It was just a stepping stone that opened the conversation; which really, was more intimate than the act itself. He understood Richie as a person. He was much kinder and persevering than his stage persona would imply. Like most Steve had managed, Richie thrived in a hot seat, but he did even more so with a steady hand to pull him to his feet when it got too real. 

It was funny, really. Richie was pretty handsome if Steve thought about it. And he was thinking about it, a lot, more and more. The brand Richie adopted was more of the goofy, every-man than the debonair charmer, but under the chunky glasses and ridiculous fivehead, he was a good looking man. Naturally masculine and solid in a way a lot of men Steve had dated tried too hard to be and weren’t. He must have appreciated the jawline before, he  _ must’ve _ , but now, it was the first thing he saw. That thing could cut glass. He was nearly scared to kiss it, the first time. It didn’t cut. It was just really fucking sexy.

Steve calls it dating, but Richie doesn’t like labels. He knows it’s dating, Steve  _ knows _ he knows that they’re a couple. They haven’t slept with or gone on dates with other men since 2014, at the latest. Which is, by definition, dating. Steve spends more nights at Richie's messy apartment than he does his own, at this point. Sometimes, they walk his neighbor's dog together on the beach. It's dating... but Richie gets scared if Steve says it out loud, even in private. If it were any other man, Steve thinks, that would have been a roadblock he couldn’t get past.

The problem was that Richie is too damn endearing. He squints his eyes shut when he doesn't like something and hides inside his jacket when he's uncomfortable. When he smiles, no matter how hard he tries, there are always teeth on show. Sometimes he bites his tongue when he laughs, unconscious and subtly sticking it between his teeth. When it shows in photographs, Richie doesn't post them to social media out of embarrassment. He writes so many jokes, good ones that never saw the stage, on restaurant napkins, and keeps them tucked in abandoned notebooks. He's endearing, and Steve really enjoys  dating him. Aside from the secrecy and alarmingly frequent night terrors, it's domestic, warm, and safe.

Steve supposes it’s that comfortable shift into contented bliss that made him so fucking worried that Richie has been gone now.

Three or four years ago, sure, Richie could go on a bender every month, so long as he was awake and sober enough come time to stand on the stage, Steve wouldn’t bat an eye.

Not anymore.

––––

Steve hadn’t been counting, but if he had, he would know it was the twelfth call that Richie picked up on.

“Mr. Covall. Kinky Briefcase can’t come to the phone right now, leave a message after the beep and he’ll get in ‘ya deep–” A man-made beep with absolutely no heart came from the other end, and Steve was shaking with… something.

“Rich, what the  _ fuck  _ is going on. Where are you.” With anger.

A beat, and then Steve heard Richie sigh and assumed (prayed) the Voice was dropped.

“Derry, Maine.”

Kinky Briefcase was gone, that’s for sure. This Voice, was it a Voice at all, was that of a very, very, very sad man. One Steve almost didn’t recognize. If Steve wasn’t as familiar with Richie and shame, he’d say he sounded almost guilty.

“You said you’d keep me posted, Rich, what happened?” He felt himself getting angry, hearing his voice. Angry wasn’t quite right – he was worried. But he knows anger, he’s been angry with Richie. He’s been worried too, but not like this.

“I’m sorry. It got messy.” Something or someone scrapes around in the background noise, and Steve hears the phone get muffled while Richie says something unintelligible to them. Steve breathes through his nose, heavy, as he waits for the familiar sound of Richie’s jaw to hit the mic uncovered.

When he hears it, Steve channels the anger-worry into something approaching sternness. Like a manager. 

“How much longer will you be there?” He doesn’t really want to go to Derry, but he knows he won’t get what he needs out of Richie over the phone if he plans to stay there.

Steve hears the shakey, choked sound on the other side of the line, and his heart races. 

“I killed a guy, Steve.”

What the  _ fuck _ . 

It doesn’t sound like Richie really understands what he’s saying. He might as well be talking about being fired from his boring day job or losing money on a bad bet. Without warning to his coworkers, Steve rushes to his private office and slams the door. His blood is pumping but his entire body feels cold.

“You—Rich, you  _ killed _ someone? I leave you alone for one fucking week and you KILL someone?!” Steve knows his voice is something close to hysterics, now. Not anger, not worry. He knows what those sound like. His tone of voice matches the man he is the same way Richie’s matches his own mannerisms. That is to say; not at all. Not in a million years, has Steven Covall heard himself this shaken out of order. His voice pitches forward and shakes. 

He tries to mask it with anger. Some healthy managerial anger, but he fails.

“I’ll have to be on trial. I can’t leave Maine until then.”

“Please, at least tell me you, you had a good reason, Rich. Fuck. You didn’t just go, fucking, batshit on me. You– fuck. Are you  _ on _ something?”

“I’m not _on_ anything. It was self-defense. Defense of someone else. ”

“Someone tried to kill you?”

“Yeah.”

“You were there for a week, Rich.”

“Yeah.”

The silence is filled with the drumming of blood through Steve’s brain. It is overflowing his veins, and he hears every movement. At some point in this conversation, he fell back into his desk. The sharp wooden edge cuts into the back of his thighs, and it sticks a million pins within the static coursing through his body.

“So, you’ll get something in the mail, probably. As my legal team. The, uh—”  _ Sniffle _ . “—The court order, legal information, and shit.”

“I’ll leave it to Aiyesha and the interns, Rich, I’m coming down there.”

“Shit, no, Steve.” Richie sounds like he’s stumbled, like he’s slid off a chair and bent his ankle the wrong way. “Don’t come here, Steve, I swear to fucking God, please.”

Steve is already stacking papers and marking them. “What do you mean Rich, why not?”

Richie just breathes on the other end, like he’s trying to find the words. Steve is afraid.

––––

Ten hours later, Steve lands in Bangor Airport. The air is thick in Maine, strangely thicker than the air in L.A. Steve doesn’t know why that sits so badly with him, but it settles at the bottom of his stomach and stays there. As he drives towards Derry in his last-minute rental the weight of it all grows, sits around him. 

A mile away from Derry town border, there’s a mass of fog drifting through the road. The interstate is strangely clear, and it’s Steve and his high beams, chugging along. 

Maybe it isn’t so strange, Steve doesn’t know that much about New England. His mother grew up in West Virginia, but that doesn’t mean he’s familiar enough with the area to know the logistics of New England roads. Maine is a far call from Virginia, anyhow. 

Still, it feels wrong to drive down an empty highway on a Tuesday night. But there’s little to be done about that. The emptiness and simplicity of the drive don’t do anything to calm his nerves or ease his thoughts. He wonders what it’ll be like when he gets there, what Richie will be like. Was Richie going to greet him at the Inn, hands stained red with civilian blood? No, of course not. 

The image sticks, though.

He turns on the radio, hoping for anything to ease the static still climbing through his bones. He doesn’t know any of the stations, but he feels a bizarre compulsion to leave the track where it is as Cutting Crew starts to blast. The music is fuzzy through the bad weather and bleary nostalgia, but it’s loud enough to distract him. For a few calm minutes, Steve drives peaceful and thoughtless down the GPS chosen off-ramp and through the thick Maine trees.

It isn’t until the song ends, right as Steve passes the sign marking Derry proper, that his stomach starts to sink again. It plays again. Same song, same version. Same station.  _ It could just be a mistake _ , he reasons. It’s a good song. He leaves it be.

The second time, he listens a little closer. The Derry center approaches in the distance, as Steve drives alongside the  Kenduskeag, and the song seems to be louder the second time around. 

_ I keep looking for something I can't get _

_ Broken hearts lie all around me _

_ And I don't see an easy way to get out of this _

He fiddles with the volume controls, but no matter how he turns the dial, it doesn’t budge “Busted piece of shit,” he murmurs, feeling anger rise up alongside the anxiety. _ It’s just a song, Steve. It’s just a town _ . 

Derry is old, that is for sure. It is old and it smells like rotted wood, funerary flowers, and rust. Even with people on the street, it feels like a ghost town. Those who are walking by are mostly older, spare a young couple leaving a small antique store to his left and a middle-aged woman at the end of the block who looked like she stepped out of the ’80s.

He tries to picture Richie as a little kid, walking into the abandoned old movie theater with this mysterious band of friends. He wonders what they’ll be like if they’re still here. Whether or not they were accomplices. Richie had said it was “defense of someone else” on the phone, perhaps that someone else was one of those friends. The radio continues to blast.

_ Oh I, I just died in your arms tonight _

_ It must've been something you said _

_ I just died in your arms tonight _

_ Oh I, I just died in your arms tonight _

He turns it off. He knows it doesn’t mean anything, it’s just an old song. But something about it feels wrong right now, and Steve doesn’t need any more unaccounted for anxiety today. Especially not from something he hoped would soothe him. He continues his cruise down the near-deserted streets of downtown Derry in silence.

Unfortunately, his GPS does not seem to recognize Derry locations as well as the town itself. That, or, like his radio, it’s just busted.  _ Maybe it’s the town _ , a voice in his head says. It’s a weird voice, high-pitched and almost musical. He doesn’t recognize it, but he assumes its some old discarded Richie-Voice, gives it a mental “fuck you,” and moves on from the thought.

The Townhouse doesn’t appear to be on this street, so he slows his car down as he reaches the woman from the ‘80s. She’s walking with a very old man, nearly reptilian in his crackled appearance. He almost expects his wrinkled face to recede within a shell when they turn to face him, or to turn to dust. He rolls down his window and gives an awkward wave.

“Sorry to bother you two, could you point me in the direction of the Derry Townhouse?” He asks, feeling weirdly unsafe under their gazes. 

They just stand there, looking at him as he leans towards their window. The woman blows a large pink bubble and bites down on it instead of replying, but her eyes narrow and piece through him judgmentally. The old man has a similar look on his face, and Steve loses hope that these people will help him.

“Listen, sorry, I’ll just keep looking–”

“Are you Sonia Kaspbrak’s boy?” The old man wheezes, taking a step closer to his car to peer in. Steve is confused, and for reasons he can’t place, a little frightened by the question. Something about the way the man says it feels perverse, dangerous. The woman pops another bubble.

“Excuse me?”

“Kaspbrak. I thought I just saw you… getting your inhaler.”

Steve shakes his head. The name makes him feel unsteady. He doesn’t recognize it. “No, I’m sorry, that’s not me. I’ve never been here before, I just need directions–”

The woman speaks up. “The Townhouse is down the road from here. Take the turn onto Main Street. You’ll know it when you see it.” Her voice crackles with many, many decades of cigarettes.

“Thank you,” he replies quickly, hoping the lipless smile he musters is enough to show his appreciation, instead of his unease. He pulls back into the road abruptly and drives onward, eagerly leaving the old man and the ringing he leaves in his ears behind. 

_ \---- _

The directions are sound. He probably could have just circled the square a couple of times, spare himself the conversation entirely. The Townhouse blends right into the rest of Derry, it’s outdated yellow and green architecture giving it a sickly atmosphere. 

He parks his car in the lot, pointedly aware of the police tape beneath one of the old windows. There are two officers sat in their car across the way, one on his phone, the other eating a donut. Neither seem very bothered by the bloodstain on the ground, nor the pieces of broken glass strewn around it. The blood sends a chill down Steve’s spine. He just knows it is connected to Richie.

Briskly, he makes his way to the front of the building. There is an elderly woman at the front desk, reading glasses pushed so far up her nose they are nestled beneath her brow bones. She does not acknowledge him when he stands in front of the desk until he rings the small brass bell on the desk. She glares at it as it rings, and then shifts her glare to him.

“Can I help you?” Her voice is crackly and gruff, clearly a smoker once upon a time.  _ Fuck _ , Steve could use a smoke. She eyes his blazer with disdain as if its cleanliness offends her antique hometown sensibilities. Maybe it does. Derry doesn’t seem like a place where much official, polished business takes place.

Steve clears his throat, pushing down the desire to snap at this woman’s hospitality. “I’m looking for Richie Tozier, he should be expecting me?”

The old woman grumbles and slumps down into her chair, throwing her arm in the direction of the foyer and 

When he spots Richie, he’s lying facing inwards on a couch, his head resting in a beautiful woman’s lap. She’s stroking his hair with a bruised hand, and she’s talking to a rugged-looking man sat across from them in a loveseat, a book in his lap. They both look up when Steve enters the room, and the woman rubs Richie’s shoulder and mutters something into his hair. Slowly, Richie sits up and turns himself around to face Steve, back creaking under the weight of his darkened eyelids. He’s wearing an unfamiliar gray sweatshirt, and he looks absurdly small. 

The dangerous, murderous Richie that has made his way into Steve’s mind over the past twelve hours flits like a candle-flame in Steve’s brain, battling Richie the goofy comedian and this Richie, looking more like shit than Steve has ever seen him. More like shit than receiving a new unfunny set-list, more than the withdrawals from cocaine, more than his parent’s funerals. How can someone this weary kill someone?  _ Defense _ , Steve reminds himself. It was just defense, and it’s just Richie. 

Goofy, stupid, serious Richie.

**Author's Note:**

> this work has been a few months in the making, ever since i discovered the 2010 script. specifically, through this post: https://kg-has-a-tumbrl.tumblr.com/post/190125781221 which i later wrote THIS post about: https://kirbyfanclub.tumblr.com/post/190132809268/this-post-by-queerjules-and-kg-has-a-tumbrl-is
> 
> and it all led to me thinking.... hey.... how the fresh hell would steve feel about all this. and thus. here we are. i can't say i'm the most prolific writer, and i've never worked on a multichapter work like this before so... we'll see how it goes. i'll do my best to finish it, timely or not. :) hope you all enjoy!


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